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01/22/2014

After running down the supposed tales of woe involving the three or four cake bakers and photographers who were told that they must comply with fairly enacted nondiscrimination law, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins tries to use this scenario as a "gotcha" against people on our side:

Patrons of a gay bar are customers. They are people from all walks of life who are paying the bar for a service. They are hanging out and enjoying their American freedoms of assembly, beer, and drag shows.

Businesses that put up a shingle and purport to do business with the public are binding themselves to the laws of the state where they set up shop. When they choose to go into business, they all know this (or at least should). If they don't want to comply with the laws, then they must find another way to do their craft that does not run afoul of these policies. There are ways.

To drag a customer out of a bar and demand that they attend a church (which they may or may not already do anyway) is, in fact, a gross violation of freedoms and a obviously unfair imposition of religion. Telling a business owner that he or she must not discriminate against customers is neither. Both instances, the factual attempt to wiggle out of nondiscrimination laws by citing religion and the theoretical idea of wrangling people out of a bar in order to promote religion, are situations involving Christians overstepping their bounds and demanding entitlements.

The proper analogy would if a gay bar wanted to deny a Christian customer bar service. In that case, Tony would actually have a point, as religion, like sexual orientation, is a protected class in most state nondiscrimination laws. But the case, as the reliably hostile FRC president states it, only shows (a) how fully he misunderstands what's going on and (b) just how excessive his evangelical superiority complex truly is.